Immaculata men pull out tight win on Senior Night

EAST WHITELAND – The Immaculata men had already secured a spot in the Colonial States Athletic Conference basketball playoffs before Monday’s clash at Alumnae Hall with rival Neumann. But the Mighty Macs were a highly motivated bunch nonetheless, and showed it during a 61-59 triumph.

Immaculata entered the contest having dropped a season-high five straight, including three by a total of eight points and another in double overtime. And even if ending the skid wasn’t enough motivation, it was the final regular season home game for five four-year seniors: Nelson Torres, T.J. Klinger, Todd Stokley, Kendall Peters and Mark Davenport. Even the man that recruited them all, former IU head coach Jamie Chadwin, was in attendance.

In addition, with the win IU kept alive its hopes to nab a top-four finish and earn home court game for round one of the playoffs. The Macs are now 10-7 (11-13 overall) and pulled to within a game of fourth-place Neumann (11-6, 12-12) with one regular season game to go (at 1-22 Cairn on Wednesday).

“This game was huge,” said Torres, who led all scorers with 22. “All five of us seniors said before the game, ‘we can’t lose this -- it could potentially be out last home game.’

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“We treated it like a playoff game, especially since we’d lost five in a row. If things go right and we beat Cairn and (Gwynedd-Mercy) beats Neumann, we could get another home game, and that’s big.”

It was a game of runs and momentum shifts, but IU staged a big move with several minutes to go by scoring eight points in a row – including two big plays at the rim by the 6-foot-3 Torres -- to open a 59-52 cushion with 1:30 remaining.

“It was huge,” said IU head coach Terrance Stewart. “It gave us a little breathing room so that we didn’t have to play perfect in order to pull it out.”

It’s a good thing, because the finish wasn’t perfect. The Mighty Macs held on despite missing the front end of a pair of one-and-ones in the final 43 seconds, including one by Klinger, the team’s best from the free-throw line (76 percent). The Knights had an opportunity to send the game into overtime, but a contested jumper by Mark Blount missed the mark at the buzzer.

“I would like all of my guys to knock down those free throws, but we’ve been in so many close games and have missed so many of those, I think it’s not as devastating when we miss some,” Stewart said. “Misses like that can happen, but we still controlled our own destiny.”

The Macs appeared to break open a close battle by scoring 15 straight points, turning a one-point deficit into a 47-33 lead with 11 minutes remaining. But then they relaxed and less than four minutes later, the lead evaporated as the Knights responded by reeling off 15 points of their own in a row, setting up the finish.

“I tell these guys that every game always comes down to one possession, but you never know when that possession will be,” Stewart pointed out.

“This was for home seeding in the playoffs, so I told them to go out and leave it all on the floor and let the chips fall where they may. We would love to have another home game for our seniors. But wherever we play, we will be ready.”